Alabama Rules of Criminal Procedure now available online through our website

The Alabama Rules of Criminal Procedure govern criminal court procedures in Alabama. Because we handle a significant number of criminal appeals, we decided to make the full text of the Alabama Rules of Criminal Procedure available on our website. These rules are often important in appellate court briefs in criminal cases, especially when it can be shown that the trial court judge did not follow the correct procedural rules. They are also useful to pro se criminal defendants or to defendants in criminal cases who have attorneys but want to do their own legal research.

It is unfortunate that we are sometimes contacted about handling appeals by clients who seem to know the law better than their trial lawyers did, but this is often the case. For example, one of our clients would still be a registered sex offender had his nephew (who was not a lawyer) not known the law better than his trial lawyer did. Because of the nephew’s own legal research, he contacted our office to start the process for overturning a void conviction. The outcome was that the conviction was set aside, the client was removed from the sex offender registry, and all charges against him were ultimately dismissed. That would never have happened if the nephew had not taken the first step of learning the relevant law himself, so that he knew to contact us to correct this injustice. This example is one of many reasons why I recommend learning as much about your own case as possible.

To read the Alabama Rules of Criminal Procedure, click here. To review the Alabama Rules of Appellate Procedure, click here. If you would like to explore some of the other legal resources available online on our website, visit our Law Links directory. We will also be making these rules available as an ebook or possibly even as a printed book in the near future, so watch for a future announcement on our blog.